Pre-Production White Mercedes 540K with Black Plastics

[bobneumann]

We found this one in a collection we are working with

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[YYS4BOB]

The corrosion evident on the axles leads me towards this model having had a "chemical treatment" to remove the plating. However, if the plastics are very glossy and slick to the touch, this may not be the case as this can be residue of the release compound from the mould. Therefore the plastics could be original. A lot of these Mercedes models appear like this.

[Moyboy]

I would go with being a 'bleacher' as all plastics I have seen on this model were mostly yellow chassis section.

[bobneumann]

Would those yellow plastics you spoke about be similar to what is on this model which we found in the same collection?

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[YYS4BOB]

This is a proper preproduction model with incomplete base plate detail. It is probably the most common preproduction example of this model. Most auctions of YY's have one.

[Moyboy]

If you look at the red one you will find it is usually has the hole in the front fender for the rear exhaust pipe to just poke through (s it was amended after this and blanked off.

[bobneumann]

The corrosion evident on the axles leads me towards this model having had a "chemical treatment" to remove the plating. However, if the plastics are very glossy and slick to the touch, this may not be the case as this can be residue of the release compound from the mould. Therefore the plastics could be original. A lot of these Mercedes models appear like this.

The plastics are slick to the touch and show no trace of bleaching. The collector who had this model did not experiment with bleaching nor did he purchase anything from sellers who experimented this way. Thank you for your analysis and I respect everyone's opinion here. We are all learning and it is good to debate these.

[YYS4BOB]

Vectis 2 days ago

https://www.vectis.co.uk/matchbox-model ... ns_id=past

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Posted just to accompany Bob's link.



Ghosthunter.

[bobneumann]

Thanks for posting the Vectis link. I should probably represent these as "Factory errors" then as Vectis did. Although, I find it difficult to believe that Lesney created models in the factory that had ALL unplated components as an error, I would expect maybe one or two components to not be plated. It is appears that it was a conscious decision to produce these. I had thought they were part of a pre-pro experiment to see how the plastic performed during the manufacturing process or how it fitted to the model. Thanks again for the clarification and I will represent these as factory errors going forward.